Favorite Quotes

“Better it is that we should die like men than live like slaves.” —Cedric in Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." —Winston Churchill

“There is nothing so fretting and vexatious, nothing so justly terrible to tyrants, and their tools and abettors, as a free press.” —Samuel Adams, Boston Gazette

"If this be treason, make the most of it!" —Patrick Henry, speaking against the Stamp Act of 1765 before the Virginia House of Burgesses

"Gentlemen may cry, Peace! Peace!—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that Gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" --Patrick Henry, in Richmond, Virginia, March 1775

“Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves.” —Joseph Warren (1775)

“What we meant in going after those Redcoats was simple. You see, we had always governed ourselves, we always intended to govern ourselves, and they didn’t mean that we should.” —Levi Preston, veteran of the Battle of Concord

“Since private and publick Vices, are in Reality, though not always apparently, so nearly connected, of how much Importance, how necessary is it, that the utmost Pains be taken by the Publick, to have the Principles of Virtue early inculcated on the Minds even of children, and the moral Sense kept alive, and that the wise institutions of our Ancestors for these great Purposes be encouraged by the Government. For no people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.” —Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, 4 November 1775

"Remember, officers and soldiers, that you are free men fighting for the blessings of liberty." --General George Washington, August 1776

“The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.” —George Washington, 1789

“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For that reason alone, people of other faiths have been afforded freedom of worship here.” —Patrick Henry

“Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains.” —Patrick Henry

“For my own part, I sincerely esteem [the Constitution] a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests.” —Alexander Hamilton (1787 after the Constitutional Convention)

“In a country above all others fond of liberty, many defend a principle as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible and destructive to liberty. . . . I am a master of slaves of my own purchase! I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living without them. I will not, I cannot justify it. . . . A time will come when an option will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil . . . but if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, an abhorrence for slavery. If we cannot reduce this wished-for reformation to practice, let us treat the unhappy victims with lenity. It is the furthest advance we can make toward justice.” —Cited in the December 3 issue of World Magazine, from Thomas Kidd, Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots

“It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.” --Abraham Lincoln

“The Almighty has His own purposes. . . . Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled up by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” —Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." --Robert F. Kennedy, University of Capetown, Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966

The header is a detail view of John Trumbull's painting Declaration of Independence, which portrays the drafting committee presenting their draft of the Declaration to the Second Continental Congress on June 28, 1776.